Audits by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) found that the National Capital Region Planning Board (NCRPB) had failed in its objective to avoid haphazard development and the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) had failed to levy penalties for delayed projects. The report also found that the Government of India Presses were owed ₹94.74 crore in printing charges over a period of 41 years.
The audit reports, which were tabled in Parliament on Wednesday, found irregularities in payments by the departments and agencies of the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry.
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In its compliance audit for 2018-2019, the CAG said the CPWD had failed to levy departmental charges for construction of the National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC) building in Kolkata, resulting in a revenue loss of ₹58.10 lakh. The CPWD in its reply in August 2018 said the NSIC was fully government-owned, so the departmental charges were not included in the preliminary estimates.
“The reply of the CPWD is not acceptable because NSIC is a commercial enterprise undertaking commercial activities. Hence, departmental charges should have been recovered from the NSIC,” the CAG report said, adding that the Ministry was yet to reply as of May 2020.
In its audit report for 2017-2018 on various ministries and autonomous bodies, which had a total of 24 paragraphs, the CAG said the Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry was yet to respond to seven of the 12 audit paras related to it.
The report said the NCRPB’s objectives were “coordinating and monitoring the implementation of the RP [regional plan]; and evolving harmonised policies for control of land uses and developing infrastructure in the region so as to avoid any haphazard development of the region.”
“Audit noticed that the Board was unable to accomplish either of the two objectives.”
On the CPWD, the report mentioned certain “deficiencies” regarding the construction of Lok Sabha staff and officers’ residential quarters in R.K. Puram in Delhi.
“CPWD accorded various extensions to the work without taking any concrete action to recover penalty despite a delay of more than 29 months in execution of the work. Delay of a substantial part of time was caused due to lapses on the part of CPWD also,” it said.
Regarding the Directorate of Printing and the Government of India Presses that it operates, the report found: “Due to lack of effective monitoring mechanism for recovery of dues, the Directorate of Printing could not recover printing charges which had accumulated to the extent of ₹94.74 crore as on March 31, 2018 and were outstanding for a period up to 41 years.”
